[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 1352]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HOME FORECLOSURES

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I wish to say one last word about an 
issue that affects my State and many others too. We received news today 
that the foreclosures of houses in Illinois have increased dramatically 
over last year--a 25-percent increase in foreclosures in Illinois over 
the last year. The same thing is true of many other States. The States 
hit the hardest are Nevada, Arizona, California, Florida, Utah, Idaho, 
Michigan, Illinois, Oregon, and Georgia.
  We have to do more. The current system we have to deal with 
foreclosures is not working well. I met this morning with Treasury 
Secretary Geithner and gave him some ideas. I hope my colleagues will 
join me in coming up with approaches that will try to save people from 
this terrible outcome of foreclosure. Many people have lost their jobs 
and cannot pay their mortgages. Understandable. Maybe we can help them 
stay in their houses as renters or some other circumstance. Some have 
seen the value of their home start to decline to the point where the 
value of the home is less than the outstanding mortgage and there is no 
incentive to continue to sacrifice and make a mortgage payment for a 
home that is worth a fraction of its original value.
  Those are realities. But the reality of foreclosure is obvious. I was 
with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in Evanston, IL, a few days ago. We 
went down Gray Street and saw homes that had been good, solid, middle-
class homes now boarded up literally for years that have become a 
blight on that neighborhood, dragging down the value of every other 
home and threatening the safety of the neighborhood as they become drug 
and crime havens. We are also seeing a phenomena like that in places 
such as Marquette Park in Chicago where the depopulation of 
neighborhoods is leading to commercial flight--food deserts in the city 
of Chicago brought about by foreclosures.
  These banks have not done enough, period. They have not stepped up to 
their responsibility. I tried to change the Bankruptcy Code to give us 
a fighting chance for a bankruptcy judge to rewrite a mortgage to avoid 
foreclosure, and I was defeated by the banks. They have a powerful 
lobby on Capitol Hill even to this day despite what we have gone 
through.
  This foreclosure situation has gone from bad to worse. I don't 
believe America can truly recover economically until we address this 
issue in a forthright manner. I look forward to working with the 
Treasury Secretary and the administration to do that when we return 
from the Presidents Day recess.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

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